Old Red Courthouse

Multiple projects include the replacement of the slate roof, including replication of cast features and stone repairs, a window repair campaign utilizing the roof scaffolding system and other maintenance work to the building envelope. A feasibility study was completed in 2018 to evaluate the relocation of the U S Court of Appeals into the building, a return of court functions. The firm was then commissioned to develop the design for the courts and is currently working to re-envision the county’s history program with the Old Red Museum, which has moved out of this building. The Old Red County Courthouse is listed on the National Register individually, the National Register as part of the Dealey Plaza Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, a State Antiquities Landmark, and a City of Dallas Landmark.

The Dallas County “Old Red” Courthouse is designed in the Romanesque Revival style which is based on 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture. Medieval buildings, particularly churches, often incorporated grotesques, often as gargoyles, symbolizing evil or to ward off evil spirits. The wyvern is a part of that tradition, although its origins are much older. A creature composed of the forelegs and wings of a dragon and the hind part of a serpent with a barbed tail, the four wyverns at Old Red had a purpose according to County Treasurer Coe in 1893: “The devils are on duty on top of the courthouse and every fellow caught doing wrong will catch the devil.”